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Analysing the monster Lou Bloom
‘Monster Culture (seven theses)’ by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is an article expressing 7 propositions on how monster culture works. Cohen’s first proposition is ‘The Monster’s Body Is a Cultural Body’ which entails that a monster’s body is an embodiment and metaphor of a culture at a specific moment in time (Cohen, 1997). The monster acts as a sign for what a culture is thinking. Nightcrawler is a 2014 film directed by Dan Gilroy containing the protagonist of the film Lou Bloom. Although Lou is a human being there are an array of arguments that can be made to say that he is just as much of a monster as anything else. Lou’s manner of speaking and gaze that he uses makes him extremely unsettling to watch which points to the idea that he might be some kind of alien who learned how to be a human through training videos. He is a man whose sum total of his soul ultimately created a singular drive to satisfy his own shallow desires. As well as this Lou’s presence and body represents a society which is becoming inevitable in which the only aspect of life that matters is obtaining money and getting validation from others. The moral and ethical cost of obtaining the money and validation isn’t even a consideration. Lou is a metaphor for materialism.
‘Humanism is credited with attributing the conscious and intentional human subject as the dominant source of agency most worthy of scholarly attention’ (Keeling and Lehman, 2018). There are many aspects of a human being that make up who we are. From a humanist perspective the cognitive framework that builds up who we are as a human and ultimately determines our outlook and perspective on life is unlike any other living creature on earth. The ability for humans to process information and intellectually translate the information into schema is done far more sophisticatedly than any other animal. A great way to look at this point is through the character of Lou Bloom. Lou’s personality throughout the film is proposed as a construction of every human interaction and encounter he has had with other people. It’s as if there isn’t a Lou Bloom and the man shown is only an entity who has pieced together his personality from the behaviours he has mimicked and the words he has assimilated into his memory from his studies into humanity.
A lot of the actions in the start of the film show Lou’s true personality. A scene in which he asks for a job at a scrapyard in which he is denied from has Lou not annoyed or upset but fascinated as if he has just learned something new about humanity and human relations. Throughout the film Lou rarely shows any sign of real emotion instead he is shown enhancing his abilities to further define this falsified persona he has formed through mimicking other human behaviour. Lou’s ability to create his entire life and persona surrounding the actions of other humans is one that requires extreme intellect. This is a great example from a humanist perspective of how human beings are superior to other creatures as no other creature has the intellectual capacity to mimic what Lou has done at such a scale.
A humanist perspective looks at humans being autonomous in acts of change, a posthumanism perspective assumes that humans participate but don’t completely control dynamic forces that influence change. Posthumanist philosophy constitutes human beings as possessing no attribute that is uniquely human but is instead made up of a larger evolving ecosystem (Keeling and Lehman, 2018). Although Lou Bloom has a complex mind structure his actions ultimately amount to one simple goal which is for him to succeed in whatever endeavour he chooses. He prioritises his preeminent goal being self success no matter the situation he is given. Lou’s lack of money or family puts him into a survival instinct at the start of the film in which he proceeds to involve himself in crime. Lou’s dying desire to succeed finds him pursuing the profession of night crawling which he also got inspired and mimicked from someone he saw in person. Lou would sit in his car and listen for police reports on local crime scenes. He would then quickly get to the crime scenes and record footage of the scene which he would then sell to news channels.
Lou is an example of extreme narcissism and is a direct manifestation of antisocial personality disorder, consequently Lou lacks any concern for the safety and wellbeing of others. This total disregard of others is further manifested through his dismissal of other people’s feelings and an unwillingness to participate in social normalities. There are numerous examples in the film where Lou crosses clear personal boundaries whether they be alive, injured or dead. Throughout the film Lou can be found manipulating crime scenes and moving dead bodies in order to improve his own shots. In a scene where Lou is confronted with a terrible crime scene a man is found bleeding all over the floor however is still alive, Lou chooses to film the mans suffering body over getting help to possibly save the man’s life.
The post humanistic vision that there is no attribute to human beings that is unique but is instead made up of a larger ecosystem becomes apparent when looking at the distinctive preempted desires that are cemented in our ecosystem. Most animals throughout the world have similar instinctive patterns to Lou Bloom being the desire to succeed no matter the cost. Much like many animals Lou doesn’t possess any real emotion in which his entire identity and purpose in life is providing for himself.
Bibliography
Keeling, D. and Lehman, M., 2018. Posthumanism.
Cohen, J., 1997. Monster theory. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, pp.44-47.
Angraini, Y., 2016. The Analysis of Sociopath of Louis Bloom’s Character in Nightcrawler. ANGLO-SAXON: Journal of the English Language Education Study Program, 7(2), pp.139-150.
Alfani, F.R., 2017. Analysis of louis bloom’s psychopath symptoms in nightcrawler film
Price, L., 2017. Why Louis Bloom Was Destined To Succeed In NIGHTCRAWLER. Film Inquiry. Available at: <https://www.filminquiry.com/louis-bloom-succeed-nightcrawler/>
Constant, P., 2014. Nightcrawler Is a Different Kind of Monster Movie. The Stranger. Available at: <https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/nightcrawler-is-a-different-kind-of-monster-movie>
Research report
https://www.tiktok.com/@cryptomarkets2?
Autoethnography can be defined as an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal experience in order to understand cultural experience (Frey, L., Botan, C., & Kreps, G. (1999). I found exploring my niche and using methods such as a participant observation has led to a better understanding of the culture behind the cryptocurrency niche.
One of the key steps in conducting a participant observation is taking notes of all the fundamental details around the niche and the platform. Having never used TikTok before, I was under the impression that it was extremely easy to gain popularity on the app. Having been on the app for more than 4 months now I have concluded that this is not the case and popularity and reputation on TikTok takes a long time just as it does on any other social media platform.
Another note I took during the observation was the volume of content that each individual creator was creating on a daily basis. The creators I was following were each producing 5 to 10 pieces of content a day. For me this came as a shock as most other social media platforms the volume of content isn’t as much of a factor but rather the quality. This as I came to learn is because TikTok favours quantity over quality so the more content you are producing the more likely you are to gain exposure.
Most users see videos on TikTok as it comes up on their ‘for you page’. As this is the case and users aren’t clicking on a video to watch rather have it shown to them the video must be entertaining from the start otherwise most people will scroll as they aren’t interested. I have found it is extremely common amongst the Cryptocurrency niche for creators to start the video with something enticing, for example, “Watch this video to find out how you can double your money in 1 week”.
‘The Predictive Power of Social Media within Cryptocurrency Markets’ a text written by Ross Christopher Phillips, describes how the different affordances on social media affect cryptocurrency discussion. In the text it is mentioned that one of the driving factors that impact which social medias are used for different topics are the limitations of the affordances within each social media platform. For example, Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms however it isn’t commonly used to discuss cryptocurrencies in detail rather used for price predictions and technical analysis etc. This is mainly due to Twitter restricting submissions to 140 characters. Platforms such as Facebook, Reddit, YouTube and TikTok all have restrictions on their platform however it doesn’t necessarily affect people openly expressing their views and opinions on cryptocurrencies which is why they are more commonly used to discuss Cryptocurrencies. Knowing this I was intrigued to find out what the standard was on TikTok and how I could produce information in a way that was conducive to this new audience.
As I used TikTok more I began noticing certain patterns and trends within the content that aligned with other social media platforms and how the cryptocurrency niche is betrayed on these mediums. One of the key takeaways from my experience on TikTok was that visual appeal is a crucial part in order to obtain engagement on your platform which directly correlates to YouTube as the same principle applies. In order to fully understand how important this principle is I decided to perform a textual analysis to identify the underlying ideological and cultural assumptions of my niche from multiple mediums.
When undertaking a textual analysis it is important to note that a textual analysis generally focuses on the semiotics and interpretive approaches to a piece of content (Fürsich, 2018). One of the main purposes behind a textual analysis is to describe and analyse the fundamental meaning behind the message contained in the content. To conduct this I evaluated the audience’s reaction and engagement on certain trends and patterns on certain content. I looked into the different types of videos that crypto currency creators on TikTok use and how that affects engagement.
It is indefinite as to how the TikTok algorithm works however I found that videos that express information quickly and concisely and contain specific cryptocurrency with a price prediction often gain more traction. The TikTok algorithm tends to videos that have a high watch time so videos that draw the viewer in and keep them listening is a great way to increase engagement. I also found that almost every creator in the niche uses a green screen to show their face talking behind a chart of another device. This is because having a talking face is visually appealing and shows the audience who is talking which can be extremely important.
Throughout completing all of my benchmarks for this subject I have been provided with some great feedback from my peers which has led to huge improvement for my Digital Artefact. On my pitch I received a comment that explained to me how important using tags in your blog post are as they can attract other users with similar interests to your post. Since using tags on my posts I have received a large amount of likes and engagement on my blog posts which I previously hadn’t. I also received a comment on my pitch encouraging me to perform a textual analysis for my niche. I took this advice as I realised a textual analysis is a great way to find the underlying cultural assumptions of a media niche.
References
JungleTopp. 2021. TikTok Algorithm: How it Works and 7 Tips to Hack it – JungleTopp. [online] Available at: <https://jungletopp.com/tiktok-algorithm/> [Accessed 27 October 2021].
Phillips, R.C., 2019. The Predictive Power of Social Media within Cryptocurrency Markets (Doctoral dissertation, UCL (University College London)).
Frey, L., Botan, C., & Kreps, G. (1999). Investigating communication: An introduction to research methods. (2nd ed.) Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. and Bochner, A.P., 2011. Autoethnography: an overview. Historical social research/Historische sozialforschung.
Fürsich, E., 2018. Textual Analysis and Communication. [online] obo. Available at: <https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0216.xml> [Accessed 29 October 2021].
Giving my final thoughts
For our final week’s blog post we once again have been given the task of giving feedback to our peers, this time on the digital artefact beta’s. Throughout watching my peers’ videos I was extremely impressed at how much progress had been made on everyone’s digital artefact. I was amazed at how many different approaches and ideas everyone had in coming up with their presentation. Looking at the different ways everyone went about their beta has given me some ideas as to what I can add and improve to the final version of my digital artefact.
Here are a couple of the beta’s I gave feedback to
Something I hadn’t even considered before watching Adrian’s presentation was what time of day I was posting my content. Seeing how Adrian has laid out a specific time that he is posting his content based on his target audience really made me think about how I could integrate a similar time based schedule for posting content on my platform. Seeing how Adrian could describe his niche in thorough detail was extremely impressive and is something that I have been striving to do myself. This is because knowing exactly who your target audience is allows you to conduct better auto ethnographic research.
Laurens detailed explanation into specific use of the affordances on social media and how this can lead to more engagement has really helped me with my project. Being able to pin certain videos that have performed well gives you the ability to show new followers who might be coming across your page for the first time what your content is all about. It gives them some examples of your best content and is likely to intrigue them into looking into your page further. She also mentioned how other podcasters captions gave her ideas as to how she could get more engagement through the use of a caption. I realised I as well could have been doing this as there is the caption of a post is something that should be fully utilised.
Digital Artefact Beta
To further enhance my digital artefact I have looked back at my peer and tutor comments for my pitch as well as lecture materials from previous weeks. I was extremely pleased with the feedback I received from my pitch. Some suggestions that I had been told was for me to use tags whenever I post on my blog as this can lead to a larger audience finding my post which would ultimately lead to more engagement. I even took this advice one step further and realised that hashtags in the captions of my TikTok would be a way in which I could attract the niche audience I am after. Hashtags also increase the chances of engagement as well with how the TikTok algorithm is set up.
Another really great piece of advice I received from a student was to focus on performing a textual analysis surrounding my niche. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, visual appeal plays a key role in engagement surrounding cryptocurrencies on TikTok. The way in which the creator uses language, semiotics, ideologies and narrative all plays a part in how the TikTok performs and the way their audience reacts to it.
I also took advice from my tutor who indicated that I need to be specific about my persona which is why I have revised my angle of approach around what my persona is going to look like to my audience on TikTok. I am going to focus my persona and account as being interactive by posting topics and allowing discussion to occur in the comment section.
Analysing and Expanding.
In this blog post I will be unpacking even further the key epiphanies (which I mentioned in my previous blog post) I have experienced while undergoing my research for my media niche. I will be further analysing how these epiphanies can benefit my project moving forward and how they have affected my original viewpoint coming into this research.
Building a reputation is key
Expanding on my first epiphany ‘building a reputation is key’ I have noticed another key idea that comes along with being associated with building credibility in the industry. The task for niche content creators on social media isn’t just attaining credibility in their chosen niche but maintaining it. Reputation is built and maintained on four different dimensions: Communication skills, influence, authenticity, and expertise (Ryu, E.A.; Han, E. 2021).
Specifically on TikTok the affordances that have been brought to their platform have made it extremely easy for micro celebrities to have their reputation crushed. Users can use the duet or stitch features on the app to easily highlight misinformation or audience exploitation. Particularly in the cryptocurrency niche, content creators have become popular simply by using these affordances to educate their audience on scams, hopium filled or false information videos.
“Influencers give consumers familiarity and consumers grant them credibility because they are sharing their own experiences and lifestyles” (Tobin, 2018)
Visual appeal influences engagement
Since the previous week’s blog post I have found another interpretation of what contradicts engagement surrounding the media niche cryptocurrency TikTok, visual appeal. In order to evaluate this epiphany I have used a textual analysis to identify the underlying ideological and cultural assumptions of the niche.
A textual analysis is a qualitative analysis method that focuses on the semiotics and interpretive approaches to a piece of content (Fürsich, 2018). When evaluating visual appeal it is important to understand how audiences react to the content they are shown as ultimately it is the audience that influences how successful content is. It has been proven that presentations with visual aides are 43% more persuasive which tell us that using imagery and semiotics that catch the eye are extremely important (Patel, 2019). On YouTube I have noticed that most cryptocurrency based YouTubers use bold titles with colourful thumbnails and arrows pointing to different aspects of the image to emphasise what’s happening in the video.
Similar patterns on TikTok are beginning to emerge as creators are finding out how the TikTok algorithm pushes videos. Most cryptocurrency based TikTok creators show appealing images of a trending topic or idea and have themselves speaking about the topic. They also add titles to the videos that generally are in all caps and have plenty of emojis. It is also worth mentioning that the TikTok algorithm is extremely unpredictable and is hard to study how engagement works on TikTok as some of it is luck.
References
Ryu, E.A.; Han, E. Social Media Influencer’s Reputation: Developing and Validating a Multidimensional Scale. Sustainability 2021,
Fürsich, E., 2018. Textual Analysis and Communication. [online] obo. Available at: <https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0216.xml>
Tobin, J., 2018. Council Post: Influencer Marketing Is Under Attack: Six Reasons It Still Works. [online] Forbes. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/06/01/influencer-marketing-is-under-attack-six-reasons-it-still-works/?sh=2152c6626058>
Patel, N., 2019. 6 Types of Visual Content You Need to Use in Your Marketing Campaigns. [online] Neil Patel. Available at: <https://neilpatel.com/blog/visual-content-you-need-to-use-in-your-marketing-campaign/>
Epiphany Time
In this blog post I am going to be giving an update on the ideas and ideations I have thought about and put in place over the last 5 weeks of conducting my ethnographic research. I have had 3 main epiphanies so far and I’m sure I will have plenty more to come in the future.
Epiphany 1 – Building a reputation is key
I have particularly noticed that there is a direct correlation between the amount of engagement on a user’s account and how experienced the user is with cryptocurrencies and how professional they are with giving out information. These users tend to get more of a following as they have built up a reputation for being knowledgeable in their field and are able to provide good quality information. Someone who has not built up a positive reputation on TikTok will often get sceptics commenting regarding whether or not the information being presented is reliable as they don’t yet have any credibility. Building a reputation can take long periods of time so being patient is key.
“A good reputation has a competitive advantage and attracts more people, it is
considered an important factor for achieving success” (Ryu, E.A.; Han, E. 2021)
Users with a significant reputation
Epiphany 2 – Interacting with others is extremely important
Throughout the process of me analysing my target audience the first thing I realised is that you cannot expect to simply just post content and expect others to come over and do the same to yours. By commenting consistently on other users’ content you are inviting people to look at your page if you have given an insightful comment. This effectively helps to build your reputation in the community which as previously mentioned is extremely important for engagement growth.
“Commenting can also lead to indirect links through exposure and exposure itself, meaning things like you leave consistent quality comments, people start to recognize you. You sort of see that profile picture again and you go, ‘I know that brand from somewhere or I know that person from somewhere. I have some positive association with them adding value.’” (Fishkin, 2021)
Epiphany 3 – Haters gonna hate
Finally, the last major epiphanie is that no matter who you are, if you voice your opinion on a cryptocurrency topic you are going to receive hate comments no matter what the issue at stake is. Many cryptocurrency investors are emotionally attached to their investments as they have spent thousands of dollars. Whenever someone talks down on something they own it generally results in a comment section flooded with emotional investors calling them dumb or stupid. I have learned to adapt to this audience and accept that my videos are not going to please everyone as that is simply impossible.
Having these moments of realising throughout the process of conducting my research is a crucial part of creating a successful digital artefact. Not having been a member of the TikTok cryptocurrency community previously has required me to be extremely productive within the time I have had. I have been required to adapt quickly to the audience in which I am producing content for.
References
Fishkin, R., 2021. Comment Marketing: How to Earn Benefits from Community Participation. [online] Moz. Available at: <https://moz.com/blog/comment-marketing-how-to-earn-benefits-from-community-participation-whiteboard-friday>
Ryu, E.A.; Han, E. Social Media Influencer’s Reputation: Developing and Validating a Multidimensional Scale. Sustainability 2021,
Reflections and Feedback
For this week’s blog post we were given the task of giving feedback to our peers for their digital artefact pitches. What stood out to me the most when reading a few of the blog posts I was assigned was the amazing talent and interesting niches people have chosen to research. Reading these posts really inspired me to think about the amazing community that I am a part of which gave me some motivation. I found specifically being able to put myself in the markers shoes and analyze work based on marking criteria that would intern be used to mark my own work really helped me visualize and understand the tasks and what markers are looking for.
Here are some of the pitches that I gave feedback to.
Looking at Tam’s pitch I felt that she did a really good job of deeply analysing the persona she is aiming for in her niche. Looking back at my pitch I believe I could have been more specific about exactly the type of persona I am going to be attributed to taking feedback from my niche. My lack of detail in terms of my persona was also mentioned by a couple of my peers when receiving feedback which I found useful to take on board.
After reading Ben’s pitch I gained a few ideas that I had not thought of that proved to be extremely helpful to my research. He mentioned that he would look back at older comments versus new comments on specific YouTube videos to look at the differences in behaviours and attitudes towards the topic at a given time. I think I could certainly apply this to my own topic looking back at older cryptocurrency videos and analysing the comments.
Looking at Lauren’s pitch I realised I could have provided more of a schedule as to the weekly timeline of my digital artefact. She had a great image that showed what she was going to aim to do on each day of the week as well as what she was going to constantly do throughout the progression of her DA.
Looking back at my feedback comments I think the way I expressed myself to get the point across I was trying to make could have been improved. Trying to fit in information in such a short amount of space is tough and something that I am trying to work on. I do think however when evaluating my feedback I did give some good suggestions for things that they might need to work on further down the track.
Digital Artefact Pitch
Throughout the process of creating and iterating my digital artefact throughout the semester I am going to consistently post on my TikTok account and when I am not posting I’m still going to be active on my account observing how my audience is reacting to my account. I plan to post 3 TikTok’s a week but this varies on the crypto market. If there is a massive spike in the market and there is driven hype I will post more frequently as the goal of my page is to keep my viewers up to date with what’s happening in the market.
To properly observe my niche I am going to take notes and screenshot and useful information I came across to understand the audience I am targeting. This would include comments on my videos, duets, comments from similar accounts, views and likes on my videos and also overall engagement and activity. I will also be paying attention to analytics such as gender and locations to give me an overall sense of who my audience is that way I can cater my persona to this audience.
As well as observing my audience I am going to be implementing analytical framework techniques to help me document my experience. One of these includes a video analysis in which I am going to analyse different features and elements of cryptocurrency related videos to try and grasp specifically how they engage with their audience through their content. For example many YouTubers use arrows and graphs in their thumbnail to make them more engaging and make the viewer want to watch.
How does the Cryptocurrency community look mapped out?
As I mentioned in my previous blog post I have chosen to investigate cryptocurrencies as my media niche for my digital artefact. In this blog post my goal is to provide a map of how I am going to ethnographically go about my research into my niche. The primary method that I am going to use to conduct an ethnographic research study on my niche is observation and field research. Being part of the cryptocurrency online community for over a year has allowed me to personally observe common participatory behaviour throughout the different platforms the niche is involved with. Having this experience will allow me to utilise the research method being auto-ethnography. This includes the majority of the top social media platforms eg. YouTube, Facebook. In observing my niche, taking notes and publishing information from social media onto my blogs etc, my highest priority is to only publish information if it is ethical to do so. I am going to make sure to not post usernames and specific comments to not expose anyone online.
Creating a field map/site is a crucial element of performing a thorough ethnographic analysis since it helps you to better grasp your selected media niche and conduct in-depth quality research.
Throughout the cryptocurrency online community I have observed numerous personas, cryptos, participants and social media platforms and compiled a mind map which sums up the niche in detail. Being in Facebook group chats has given me knowledge as to who the general audience is that consumes cryptocurrencies. Many people put on a critical persona and negatively comment on specific ideas within the community. YouTubers that I consume who cover cryptocurrencies such as Crypto Capital Venture and Jason Pizzino often put on specific personas to cater to an audience. YouTubers often hype up and exaggerate cryptocurrency news to get people to watch their videos.
References
NerdWallet. 2021. What Is Cryptocurrency? Beginners Guide to Digital Cash – NerdWallet. [online] Available at: <https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/cryptocurrency-7-things-to-know>
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